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Topic: Bread from the spent grains (Read 1832 times)

Recently, I asked my wife to cancel the beer of the month subscription that she had given me for Father's Day last year. (It looked like the supplier was going go through the same recipes in the up coming year. What's the fun in that?) At the same time I have decided that I would focus on all-grain brewing going forward.

After three all-grain brews my compost bucket is starting to fill up with spent grain. I have heard that the spent grain from a mash could be used for making bread. To what extent can I use the grain? What should I do to it if I wish to use it in a bread?

Can I create a pizza dough from this? Pizza and beer goes hand in hand quite nicely.

I'll take any recipes that I can get. At the end of the day I am looking for ways to use the grain if possible. Is it used as a supplement to the recipe or can I use it as the base by drying the grain and milling it into a flour?

All the recipes I've seen, which admittedly aren't that many, tend to use the spent grain as a small portion added to a normal flour base. I too had my "economical" side hoping to find a good use for spent grain when I went AG, but the spent grain breads I saw seemed counterproductive since they didn't really use spent grain as more than an additive.

Bearing in mind the grain is "spent" in the sense that all its sugars and fermentables get washed away leaving husk and mashed/rinsed malt, even if it could be processed into flour it might not really produce a nice tasting bread. I dunno though!

I've made spent grain bread several times, the first time I just added it right into the mix. You definately get more texture once its cooked, but I didn't noticed it changed the flavor much at all. Keep in mind, its 'spent', all you're getting at this point is a protein boost and 'roughage' with the husks. The second time I did it, I dried the grain a bit then threw it into the food processor to grind it up as fine as I could, then added that into the bread mix. I thought that was much better... I don't like chewing on husks in my samich! If you're going to mix it into pizza dough, I would highly suggest grinding it up like I did. Also don't use the darker grains, it actually lends flavors you don't want in bread. good luck.

The grains, just like 100% whole wheat will keep your bread from rising nicely. It will be a more rustic loaf, much more dense since the "roughage" pops the yeast bubbles. Also - pizza dough will not stretch nearly as nice as a 100% white flour dough.

I've layed out my grains to dry a bit, then pulse them several times in the food processor. From there mix them into your recipes. You wont get as much texture but gets your recipes to where they originally were. The big thing you're getting here is a protien boost. btw, you shouldnt be feeding grain to cows, they are not designed to digest it easily.